The Golden Token
The constables realized it then.
They could not escape from the county office.
The ruler of this place was now Dan Hyunwoo.
A man who had closed the massive front gate using nothing but his internal energy.
Despair was a word made for moments exactly like this.
“Yuhwa. Handle them.”
“If that’s what my commander wants.”
Hwa Yuhwa flicked her hair back, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks as she strode toward the constables who were desperately trying to flee.
Dan Hyunwoo turned his back on the scene and walked toward the county magistrate.
Baek Changseo trembled violently as he watched Dan Hyunwoo approach.
His mind was spinning faster than it ever had during any of his official examinations.
Damn it! At this rate, I’m dead. What do I do? Wait… a martial artist. That’s it. This bastard is from the murim!
When a spear comes, you block it with a shield.
The county magistrate recalled the sturdiest shield he knew.
The Gwan-Mu Bulgachim—the Non-Aggression Pact between Government and Wulin—was a universal cure-all that worked like magic in situations like this.
“Y-young master, you have violated the Gwan-Mu Bulgachim. However, if you step back now, I will overlook this matter. I will also release Dan Seoyeon and Eun Hyeongyeom.”
Having switched to polite speech in the span of a single breath, Baek Changseo studied Dan Hyunwoo’s reaction.
The reason was simple: the young man had stopped exactly one zhang away.
It seemed the threat had worked.
“……”
“This is my final warning. You must remember the bloody incidents of the past that occurred because people violated the Gwan-Mu Bulgachim.”
“…I’m not saying I don’t know about them. But I’m not a martial artist.”
His robe fluttered.
Dan Hyunwoo tossed a golden token toward the magistrate.
The golden plaque drew a smooth arc through the air and landed at Baek Changseo’s feet.
What… what is this?
Six horses were engraved on the golden surface.
A wooden plaque engraved with a single horse was something even a county magistrate had seen often; those were carried by messengers.
An iron plaque with two horses belonged to officials of a rank so high that Baek Changseo could barely meet their eyes.
A bronze plaque with three horses was something even the fifth-rank official he bribed had never seen.
Even the Grand Preceptor at the pinnacle of power only possessed a silver-and-gold plaque with five horses.
Yet here was a golden plaque with six horses engraved on it.
Baek Changseo’s entire body began to shake uncontrollably.
Oh shit! I… I’ve stepped on something I should never have touched!
The man before him existed on a completely different plane.
He was the kind of person who must never be provoked.
Dan Hyunwoo closed the distance between them.
“W-wait just a—”
Crack!
Dan Hyunwoo threw a punch.
Baek Changseo felt unimaginable agony as his teeth poured out of his mouth like hail.
“Guhk!”
The pain was so terrible that death would have been preferable. A second wave of torment slammed into him as the fist buried in his stomach felt like it had snapped his intestines.
“Aaaargh!”
Everything inside him came pouring out of his mouth.
Even his screams.
Every single thing that rose from the depths of his gut carried unbearable pain with it.
Soon his limbs were being torn apart and the shape of his face began to disappear.
“P-please spare me! I’ll confess everything… just please stop hitting me…”
He crawled across the floor, begging in the most pathetic manner imaginable.
Baek Changseo vomited everything he had ever swallowed and wept tears of blood.
Dan Hyunwoo smiled coldly.
“I told you just a moment ago. I haven’t even started yet.”
Dan Hyunwoo’s fist rose toward the sky.
Yu Sucheon, who had been guarding the front gate, flinched.
Screams had not stopped pouring out from inside the county office and were still flowing without pause.
The gate, which had somehow closed itself, refused to open again.
It was as if a thousand-pound weight of iron had been bolted across it.
This is insane. This isn’t just violating the Gwan-Mu Bulgachim anymore. How the hell does he plan to deal with the consequences?
Dan Hyunwoo had just climbed aboard a carriage heading straight to hell.
And Yu Sucheon himself was the driver, racing at full speed alongside his master toward mutual suicide.
Unable to endure the ominous feeling any longer, Yu Sucheon tried once more to open the gate.
Creak.
At that exact moment, someone flung the doors wide open.
There stood Dan Hyunwoo, Hwa Yuhwa, Dan Seoyeon, and Eun Hyeongyeom.
Eun Hyeongyeom wore a face of relief, while Dan Seoyeon clung to Dan Hyunwoo’s arm with a face shadowed by worry.
Dan Hyunwoo met Yu Sucheon’s eyes.
“Clean up inside the county office.”
“There aren’t piles of corpses in there, right?”
“I didn’t kill them, so just tie them up. It’s a county office—there should be plenty of ropes lying around.”
As always, Dan Hyunwoo said only what he needed to say and headed straight back toward the Dan Manor.
Left standing alone, Yu Sucheon was immediately assaulted by the thick, metallic stench of blood wafting from inside the building. It nearly made him choke.
“Just how hard did he beat them…?”
After a moment of hesitation, Yu Sucheon steeled himself and stepped into the county office.
“What… the hell…”
He remembered how Dan Hyunwoo had bluntly praised him after the fight with Strongman Kang, saying he had done well.
The man spoke curtly and beat people without mercy, but he also possessed a sense of fairness that allowed him to praise those who deserved it.
Yet the Dan Hyunwoo who had done that was now responsible for this scene.
The constables and strongmen all lay with broken and torn bodies, constantly vomiting blood that continued to soak the floor.
It meant every single one of them was guilty.
“So all of these bastards were sucking the blood of the common people? Not a single one left out. Even a villain like me finds that ridiculous. Damn, this county office really was running like a well-oiled machine.”
A bundle of ropes appeared in Yu Sucheon’s hands.
While he tied them up tightly with no gaps, their screams continued, but he felt not the slightest shred of pity.
They should have taken their cut in moderation.
He himself had done plenty of bad things over the years, but watching these men who had even stolen the food from babies’ mouths get what they deserved tasted sweeter than honey.
That was why he secretly put extra strength into the ropes, making them hurt even more.
Yu Sucheon turned his gaze and suddenly froze in shock.
“There’s barely a human shape left?”
The county magistrate had been beaten into a bloody pulp. At first, Yu Sucheon thought he was already dead.
Only after spotting the official robes did he realize who it was. The man was hovering on the threshold of death.
Seeing how much pain he was in, Yu Sucheon took special care to tie him up especially tightly and painfully.
But… is it really okay to tie him up like this?
Even as he worked, worry gnawed at him.
To beat the head of the county office so severely.
Wasn’t Dan Hyunwoo basically declaring war on the government?
Ah, whatever. It’s not like I’m the one who caused this mess. If the authorities come to investigate, I’ll just say Dan Hyunwoo did it. Because he actually did.
If Dan Hyunwoo ended up being pursued by the government, Yu Sucheon might finally regain his freedom.
He finished tying up every last person.
The moment he turned to sneak outside, however, he froze solid as a stone.
“…?! Huh? I definitely closed the county office doors, so why…”
He suddenly remembered that when Dan Hyunwoo had kicked the doors open, the lock had been destroyed.
That was why he had gone through the trouble of closing the unlocked doors—only for them to swing wide open again.
“Oh my, oh my, Lord Yu Sucheon is tying them all up…”
“He beat them half to death. It’s a miracle the magistrate is still alive.”
Hundreds of commoners stood there, staring blankly at the bloodied constables, strongmen, magistrate, and Yu Sucheon who was tying them up, whispering among themselves.
To anyone watching, the culprit was clearly Yu Sucheon.
Yu Sucheon was the one who had turned the county office upside down.
He had especially brutalized the magistrate without mercy.
And there was clear evidence.
The people had personally witnessed him tying up the magistrate and constables with ropes for torture.
Yu Sucheon turned pale and shouted in a panic.
“It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it!”
Of course, no one believed him.
Inner Cabinet Hall, Forbidden City.
The very heart of the empire where state affairs were discussed, a place only high-ranking officials could enter, had been thrown into complete chaos.
Go Heung, a second-rank Minister who had come running in a hurry, spoke.
“Is it true that someone used a plaque with six horses?”
“Hard to believe, but they say that plaque—known only in legends as an illusion—has appeared in Un-gae County, Hangzhou.”
Gwak Jin-hong, another second-rank official, answered.
Go Heung wore an expression of disbelief.
“I’ve only heard stories, but the golden plaque really exists. Just who in the world possesses such a thing?”
“I don’t know. It simply vanished. That’s not the important part, though… haa.” Gwak Jin-hong sighed. “The golden plaque was created by Emperor Taizu, the Hongwu Emperor who founded our great Ming. It was meant to be inherited only by the emperor himself. And yet… there was another one.”
“Are you saying… there exists a person who holds the same absolute, limitless authority as His Majesty the Emperor?”
“Wouldn’t that be the case? Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl. How is that any different from His Majesty personally walking the streets every day to inspect the lives of the common people?”
Gwak Jin-hong shuddered.
As if contagious, every official gathered in the Inner Cabinet Hall shuddered in exactly the same way.
Merely imagining it was dizzying, but reality seemed even more terrifying than imagination.
Go Heung asked carefully.
“Did we… send a proper person to handle the incident in Un-gae County? If we send just anyone and end up offending the holder of the golden plaque…”
“I sent the person I trust and cherish the most. Since this is something His Majesty himself would have done, we cannot afford to be careless. If it goes wrong…”
Gwak Jin-hong drew a finger across his throat in a slicing motion.
Everyone agreed the gesture was perfectly appropriate and broke into cold sweats.
Failing to properly supervise a county magistrate who had been sucking the lifeblood of the common people was already a grave crime.
But if the one who had purged that corruption happened to possess the same authority as the emperor himself…
In the best case, it would be a bolt from the blue. In the worst case, execution.
Go Heung wiped away his cold sweat.
“Is there truly no way to find the holder of the golden plaque? We cannot simply leave someone with such power unchecked. We should rush over, kowtow, and beg for our lives, and even that might not be enough.”
“Even if we could find him, we must not look. It would be the same as tracing His Majesty’s footsteps. Do you truly wish to lose your head? How dare a subordinate follow in the tracks of a superior?”
“T-that is true. Then, to show our determination that such an incident will never happen again, let us remove every single official responsible for Zhejiang Province. As for that wretch Baek Changseo who was the county magistrate, execute him as quickly as possible.”
“I agree. However, that is only a temporary measure. The real problem is who we send to fill the position of county magistrate in Un-gae County.”
“Hmm? You’re right. If we send just anyone, the golden plaque will appear again. And then we really will die.”
“Indeed… this is quite the dilemma.”
The officials gathered in the Inner Cabinet Hall sank deeper into worry.
After all, where could one find a county magistrate who disliked bribes and under-the-table money?
It was common knowledge among officials that the position of county magistrate was the perfect post for lining one’s own pockets.
“How about this?”
At that moment, Jin Hwi-gwang, a second-rank official known as the cunning old fox and one of the Three Minor Officials to the Crown Prince, clapped his hands as if a brilliant idea had come to him.
“Isn’t there that one person? The man who gets removed from his post the moment he’s appointed.”
Go Heung answered.
“Doesn’t that fellow have too many problems? He has never lasted more than six months at any posting. If we send someone like that, who knows what kind of disaster will occur…”
“Precisely because of that. Don’t you remember why he keeps getting removed? It’s because he is excessively inflexible and possesses the integrity of a steel rod.”
“Ah!”
Go Heung finally understood Jin Hwi-gwang’s true intention.
There was an old saying that an arrow that does not bend will eventually break. This man had ignored the wisdom of his ancestors and had already broken seven times.
A person so lacking in flexibility that, regardless of his ability, everyone considered him a walking headache.
Go Heung said,
“Then let us take this opportunity to shove that troublesome fellow into Un-gae County forever. If there is one thing he will never do, it is accept bribes. He is the perfect fit for a place where the holder of the golden plaque resides. Does anyone object?”
Every official present in the Inner Cabinet Hall shook their heads.
“Unanimous!”
One month later.
Yu Sucheon entered the market with an awkward expression on his face.
It was because the fishmonger, Mr. Moon, had greeted him with utmost respect.
“Aigoo! Hero Yu Sucheon, sir! Have you come to shop for groceries again today?”
“Y-yeah.”
The man handed over two fish he had just caught.
Yu Sucheon accepted them in silence.
Every time he tried to refuse, the man simply gave him one more.
“Lord Hero Yu has arrived! Please try some of these.”
This time, the owner of the steamed corn stall, Mr. Choi, carefully selected five perfectly ripened ears and handed them over.
“Th-thank you, I’ll enjoy them.”
“Aigoo, you are the great man who overturned the entire county office to save the merchants. Why are you so shy over something as small as this?”
Shy? No. He just felt guilty.
The real culprit behind the incident was Dan Hyunwoo.
But the people had misunderstood on their own, and every time Yu Sucheon came to the market, they pressed food into his hands until he couldn’t carry any more.
And that bastard Dan Hyunwoo is just pretending he doesn’t know anything.
The title of “hero” had already spread far and wide. It was no longer easy to coldly refuse.
Refusing items from people who were already struggling to survive, especially when they offered them with tears in their eyes, felt too cruel. So today as well, Yu Sucheon ended up carrying home another bundle of food.
“Stop stuffing your face.”
Yu Sucheon glared at Jeon Akgwan, who was happily munching on corn.
“When I was young and poor, my mother often boiled these for me. In the countryside, the only things we had to eat were potatoes and corn. It’s been so long that it brings back old memories.”
“This bastard. He has nothing to do with the Gwan-Mu Bulgachim, so of course he can eat comfortably.”
“Hmm… speaking of that incident, why is everything still so quiet?”
“I’m the one who wants to ask that.”
Whenever the topic of Gwan-Mu Bulgachim came up, everything before his eyes turned white.
Hero—the highest praise a martial artist could receive.
Public enemy of the government for violating the Gwan-Mu Bulgachim.
These two titles had been spinning inside Yu Sucheon’s head for the past month, making him dizzy.
Why? Why hasn’t anything happened?
The entire incident had somehow been glossed over and forgotten.
Despite it being a massive violation of the Gwan-Mu Bulgachim.
Even stranger was the government’s response.
Baek Changseo had been beheaded without any investigation or trial.
The four strongmen who died alongside him were simply part of the same incident. The remaining constables had all been thrown into prison, and that was the end of it.
Except for one new constable who had been in charge of escorting the prisoners.
On the other hand, Dan Hyunwoo, who had violated the Gwan-Mu Bulgachim, and Yu Sucheon, who had been hailed as the hero of Hangzhou, were living perfectly peaceful days.
So he had asked Dan Hyunwoo about it.
“If a person who corrected evil deeds must worry about his own safety, then this country is already finished.”
That was the only answer he received—a cryptic, Zen-like reply.
The final words Dan Hyunwoo added had turned Yu Sucheon’s vision pitch black.
“Since you’ve become a hero, live like one.”
He clearly knew something, but Dan Hyunwoo refused to say another word.
Just who the hell is Dan Hyunwoo?
His questions piled up like snowdrifts.
In the end, unable to reach any answer, Yu Sucheon let out a deep sigh.
“Telling a villain to live as a hero… what am I supposed to do with that…? Looks like I won’t be able to do any bad things from now on.”
His fate had twisted itself into a truly filthy knot.
A hero, of all things. Just what was he supposed to do about the goosebumps crawling all over his arms?